I am still new (1year). I started advertising and picking up private clients. Perhaps it is too soon but I am advertising in a very small way so I am only exposed to a half dozen clients a month, give or take. I was called to tune a Shuman spinet. The owner inherited it and didn't think it was tuned for at least 15 years. Came to find out it hadn't been tuned or serviced since 1975! It was 100.6 cents flat. I decided to pitch raise it to plus 20 cents. I knew it needed to go higher but I didn't think it wise. I broke three strings on the pitch raise and a fourth while changing one of the others. All of the stings were past the last break on the top third of the piano. The strings looked original and some had already been replaced (the ones I didn't break!). I felt so bad that I split the cost of the 3 string replacement with the client and told him the 4th was on me. My mentor told me (since it was 100 cents flat) that I should have first brought it up to pitch, then a pitch raise, then a fine tuning. I exclaimed "but that's THREE tunings" to which he said YES. It is hard enough to explain and sell a pitch raise let alone a third tuning! Did I mess up here? I would have charged more for the total bill for three tunings with no broken strings anyway. Should I have charged full price for the string replacements? Should I not have charged for them? One of the reasons I gave the client a break is because I failed to give the "possible string breakage speech" before starting the work. Thanks for any insight. Glenn.
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